Sight
by blinkblink
Summary: Madoka drabble. How important is seeing to someone who never has?


Disclaimer: I don't own Get Backers or the characters or anything, including useless things like Shido's bandana. Actually, it's not useless. It hides the fact that he had no eyebrows.

ANs: The apocalypse is coming. Yes, that's right. I have written a Get Backers fic that is not depressing. Don't worry though. The chapter story which I will soon be posting will more than make up for it. Look out for it in the M section. cry

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Sight

"Shido-san?" Madoka, sitting on the grass under one of the many trees on her estate, turned to the man next to her who was currently stroking a purring cat.

"Hm?" He looked up but continued to pet the cat.

"I was wondering, when I met you, I never got to, I mean, I usually do, but everything was so confused, and I didn't know who you were, and then later I never really got around to asking, and– " Madoka paused, then turned away. "Never mind, Shido-san. It's nothing."

"Madoka...?"

"Um, I just remembered, I wanted to arrange some clothes for the week. Come on, Mozart!" She stood, took hold of the dog's halter and headed off towards the house. Shido watched her go, confusion written plainly across his face.

* * *

"_Sarumashi_? He looks like a rat." Ban made what he apparently thought to be a rat-like face, then realised it was lost on his audience. He sighed and leaned back in his seat. Madoka and the two Get Backers were currently occupying said agency's usual corner of the Honky Tonk.

"Ban-chan!" Ginji smacked at him. "Don't listen to him, Madoka-chan. Shido-san doesn't look like a rat. Well, he does kind of have the eyes a little, and sometimes when he scrunches his nose it's a _little_ ratty, but really there isn't much resemblance."

"Don't deceive her, Ginji! She'll be stuck with a guy who looks like a rat, and never know it!"

"Ban-chan, stop being mean! Shido-san isn't even here to defend himself." Ginji's voice took on a distinctly whining tone.

"Who cares?" Ban crossed his arms over his chest, glanced over keenly at Madoka. "Why're you asking?"

"Um, it's just that... I realised I spent so much time around him, and you two as well, and I can't even picture you properly. You're just your voices to me, and what I imagine."

"Isn't that how everyone seems to you, Madoka-chan?" Ginji, confused, rested his elbows on the booth table and propped his chin up on his hands.

"Only people who I don't know well. People I know well, my friends, I ask to 'see' them." She emphasized the 'see' slightly.

"See?"

"With my fingers. Like this." She pulled her fingers down gently over her face. "It helps me picture them better, at least have some sense of what they must look like. She spoke with the slight puzzlement of one who would never really understand what it was like to look like anything.

"Wow! I wonder what Ban-chan looks like!" Ginji closed his eyes, reached out randomly towards Ban, pressed his fingers against his partner's face.

"Ow, stop it!" Ban slapped them away, rammed Ginji's head into the table with his elbow. "You almost took my eyes out! I need those!"

"You have to be gentle, Ginji-san. Other wise you'll just alter things anyway, and get a wrong impression. Here, may I show you?" Madoka reached out across the table, hands hovering in the air.

Ginji leant forwards, took her hands and placed them on his face. She ran her fingers gently over the top of his spiky hair, then down over his face, passing over his eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth and chin carefully. When she was done, she smiled. "You have a very open and happy face, Ginji-san."

"Wow! She's right, Ban-chan!"

"Idiot!" Ban smacked him on the head, but lightly this time. "Anyone could tell that just from the sound of your voice."

"What does Ban-chan look like, Madoka-chan?" Ginji grabbed the back of Ban's collar and forced him to lean over the table, took Madoka's hands, now resting on the table top, and pressed them against his face.

As soon as Ginji let go, Madoka pulled her hands back slightly, apologetically. "I'm sorry, Ban-san."

"It's okay. I don't mind." He didn't touch her, but allowed her to run her hands over the spiky outline of his hair, then down his face. Her fingers skirted over his eyes, but paused when they touched the metal frame of his glasses.

"You don't see very well, Ban-san?" Madoka ran one finger along the purple-tinted glasses.

"No, I see fine. They're just sunglasses." He took them off, set them down on the counter.

"Is it very bright here?" Madoka tilted her head around, wide, blind eyes shifting in confusion.

"No. They're not to keep light out. They're to keep it in."

"Um..."

"Ban-chan's eyes tend to hypnotize people accidentally if he looks at them too long. His glasses stop that."

"Oh. I understand, I think."

He closed his eyes and she ran her fingers over them lightly, then down his nose, over his sharp cheekbones and down to his jaw. "Ban-san's face is sharper than Ginji-san's. But it's still very open. Ban-san must look very kind."

Ginji sniggered quietly while Ban put his glasses back on, fuming silently.

"Was I wrong?"

"No, Madoka-chan, you're right, Ban-chan really does look nice." Ginji broke into another round of sniggering. Ban whacked him on the head again, this time did not bother pulling his punch. "Ow, Ban-chan! It hurts when you do that, you know."

"So don't say stupid things, and then I won't have to! Kind! Feh." Although his mouth was frowning, his eyes shone bright with amusement behind the tinted glasses.

Madoka felt the clock at her wrist with raised hands and dots to indicate the hours and frowned slightly. "I had better be getting back. I told Shido-san I would return before four." She rose, began shuffling out of the booth to where Mozart was sitting on the ground.

"Madoka."

She turned at the sound of Ban's voice.

"Do you really want to see Shido?" His hands fingered his glasses. "It might be possible..."

Madoka paused, frozen, stared at Ban. Ginji also turned to look at him. "Of course! If Ban-chan uses _jagan_, he could show her an illusion with Shido-san in it! But could you do that, Ban-chan?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure, but there's a chance it would work, anyway."

"You would be able to see Shido-san, Madoka-chan! And us, too! Ban-chan can show whatever he wants with the _jagan_."

"To see everything; people, places, _colour_." Madoka's voice was wistful.

"That's right, Madoka-chan!"

"For one minute only, Ginji-san. And then, when it was over, to know that I would never be able to see them again." Her voice turned cold, hard.

"Madoka-chan..."

"It would be better to never know, than to see for an instant and then never again." The coldness melted into sorrow.

"Madoka-chan..." Ginji rose, reached out to her.

"Ginji, don't." Ban stood and pulled him back. He addressed himself to Madoka, "I'm sorry."

"It's all right, Ban-san. You meant well. Good day." She stepped down out of the booth, took hold of Mozart, and left.

"I never should have offered." Ban sank back into the seat.

"Ban-chan, don't..."

"I could have screwed up her life."

"You meant well, Ban-chan." Ginji echoed Madoka's words, draped a comforting arm over his partner.

"Ginji..."

"Madoka-chan's a smart girl, Ban-chan. After all, she saw through you."

"Huh?"

"You really are a kind person, Ban-chan."

"Ginjiiiiii..."

"Ah, ah, no! Not the ears, not the ears! Noooo!"

* * *

"I'm home." Madoka walked through the front door, Mozart preceding her by a step. He stopped, yapped quietly. "Shido-san?"

"Welcome home." He waited for her to change her shoes, then followed her through to a living room where she sat down, unhooked Mozart's halter. He sat down on the same couch as her, a cushion separating the two of them.

"Earlier, I was going to ask..." Madoka collected her thoughts, twisted her fingers in her lap, and asked more clearly, "I was wondering if ... when I meet friends for the first time I usually ask to 'see' them, and I realised, I've never 'seen' you."

Shido's silence radiated confusion.

"Like this." She moved her hands slowly, gently, over her own face.

Silence.

Madoka's face fell, slightly. "Never mind, Shido-san, it was silly of me to– "

Shido's hands wrapped around hers, pulled them gently to his face. Smiling now, Madoka turned slightly to face him, slid over to sit beside him. She ran her hands over his hair, took in its spiky aspect, before running her fingers gently down from his hair line over his bandana. She paused at it, fingering the fabric for a minute, face darkened in confusion, before it lightened again in silent understanding; her fingers slid further down, followed the bones around his sharp eyes, over his cheeks. She ran her thumbs down over his long nose, pinkies following the curve of his ears. They slid down along under his chin while the rest of her fingers paused on his lips. She blushed, quickly pulled her hands away and dropped her head to conceal her face behind a screen of dark hair.

"Well?" His gruff voice was soft, slightly anxious.

"I met Ban-san and Ginji-san today," Madoka began on a seemingly unrelated note. "Ban-san offered to show me your face."

"He did?"

"Yes, but I refused." She paused, then reached up to rest the tips of her fingers lightly over Shido's eyes. "To you, eyes are very important. But, for me, my fingers tell me everything I need to know." She slipped her other hand into Shido's, squeezed it slightly.

"What did they tell you?"

"That Shido-san is very handsome."

"A-ah?"

"Un. But, I think I knew that already." Madoka smiled gently, slid her hand down the side of Shido's face to rest under his chin, her thumb brushing against his lips. "There are some things that I don't have to see at all to know."


End file.
